The Dream of Consistency and Discipline

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 A few weeks ago I received a lovely comment from a reader. It stated….

“Hi Mrs. Shockley, I really do love your blog posts. Would you consider doing a post on staying consistent & having discipline? Your posts are a constant source of beauty, happiness & elegance, you appear to be a really positive lady so I just wondered if you could share any tips. 

Loving your blog. 

Maria (UK) xx” 




First of all, I just want to say thank you to Maria for this lovely compliment. It is always a privilege to receive wonderful notes from readers. Well, Maria, I will try to fulfill your request. Having discipline and being consistent is very hard sometimes.

photo credit Annie Spratt





But I would say that the first thing you have to do is know who you are and how you want to live. You must know that first! Then and only then you can begin to make decisions on how to organize your life. 


I remember back in high school I was dating a young man. He was about two grades higher than I was and even back then I wanted to wear polka dot scarves, dresses, pumps, and huge vintage earrings. Well, those things bothered him. So I stopped wearing them and I became very miserable. I was smothering who I was for someone else. I remember telling him that I was unhappy and that I no longer cared what he thought and I returned to my “old lady” ways of dressing. So sure enough he began to see that this was me and that I was not going to change. At that moment I know that I was coming into “my own”. 



photo credit Larisa Birta 

I also knew at a very young age that I wanted a beautiful home. So I began to buy items that I loved for my bedroom and that habit has stayed with me until now. I stayed consistent with this. Even if you buy one home item at a time, over time you will build your home into something beautiful. You can just buy one item at a time…

(An inspiring post from my blog in January 2017) 




Once you have figured out how you want to live and began to slowly cultivate your home, just be consistent with it and you will have to be bold. It is unbelievable to me the number of people (women, honestly) who I have to fight off or explain my way of living to. It truly is incredible. 


(Beauty in Waiting, my blog post from May of 2017 about beautiful things that I am waiting for)


Being discipline with routines is important also. I mentioned that in this blog post here about my daily routine. Being disciplined with your life will and can bring great happiness. Write a list of weekly dinners and rotate them, pick the same day to wash and fold laundry, I know for me I have kept the same weekly cleaning schedule for over 10 years. One weekend is the upstairs and the next weekend is the downstairs. I recently added classical music to my weekend cleaning schedule. I know that family secretly enjoys it.

One quote that I wanted to share is from one of my favorite Christian teachers, Joyce Meyer she stated… “Getting organized in the normal routines of life and finishing little projects you’ve started is an important first step toward realizing larger goals. If you can’t get a handle on the small things, how will you ever get it together to focus on the big things?” 


There is so much truth in this one statement. If you can’t wash your dishes, vacuum your floors, get to work on time, then how in the world are you going to lose weight, cook meals, and look presentable. It’s all connected and I learned that from a few mentors. Another great article to read about discipline is 15 Inspirational Ideas on How to Stay Consistent and Realize Your Dreams.   This article gives more ideas and tips on how to accomplish your goals. 


Well I hope that you enjoyed this post and have found inspiration on moving forward and setting new goals in your life and home. 


Enjoy your day!!!

(photos via Pinterest)

My Easy Veggie Spaghetti

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Coming home from work and starting your “home” job is never an easy task. Sometimes I work harder at home than at the office.

Most nights I just want an excellent meal with limited fuss and honestly I believe that most moms and wives are like that now. We want good meals with less ingredients (but good ingredients) and limited work. Once a week I make this easy veggie spaghetti.

Now my husband is not big on vegetables. In fact he HATES them but I am trying to get him to give them a taste. This has been one of the recipes that has worked.

My absolute favorite spaghetti sauce is Prego. I love it! They have a wonderful selection and I have tried most of their flavors and adore them without fail. I have been using whole wheat pasta lately and I love adding this McCormick spaghetti seasoning to my meat. It gives it more flavor. 

I brown my meat. I am enamored with the ground beef at Costco. It is the best. I also normally add some garlic salt or powder to my ground beef. 

I now add in the McCormick seasoning. 
Once it has finished cooking I add in my spaghetti sauce. This has mushrooms and green peppers in it. It is really good!

You can see chucks of mushrooms and green peppers. 
I normally have my pasta cooking while I am browning my meat. And voila, there you have it a nice dinner in about 30 minutes. I also normally have a french bread or wheat loaf in the oven cooking. Honestly, spaghetti night is one of my favorite nights because I know that the dinner will take me no time, my family will be happy and I can nibble on a warm piece of french bread with a glass of wine. 
I hope that you find this post useful and try out those veggie spaghetti sauces from Prego!
Enjoy!

(photos via Mrs. Shockley)

Elegant Herbal Teas

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Happy Hump Day all! Since Monday was a holiday I find that keeping track of what day it is can really be hard sometimes! The week can really slip away from you if you are not aware of your days! 
Last week I promised that I would share some of the herbal teas that my husband purchased for me from David’s Tea.

I love how organized this little box was. 
Love all of the colorful tea packets. It looks like a rainbow. This is the sachet tea wheel.
And on the sides they have the teas labeled by flavor. 
Now I just wanted to share a few of my favorites. 
This is honeycrisp apple tea. Oh can you imagine having this on a crisp autumn morning with warm buttery bread and buttery scrambled eggs? I can!

It has apple, sweet blackberry leaf, green tea, hibiscus, apple pomace, pear and natural and apple flavoring. 

This is cherry blossom tea.

This has white tea, green tea, cherries, coconut chips, rosebuds (you can smell those), natural and artificial cherry flavoring. Now this was good but not one of my favorites. I am not a huge coconut fan. 

This is one of my favorites!! It smells wonderful! I gave a few to my co-workers to taste and that’s all they raved about. 
Forever nuts

This has apple, almonds, cinnamon, beetroot, and artificial flavoring. It does contain almonds so be careful if you have a peanut allergy. 
My husband also purchased teas for the office for me. Most of those have been really good! I love the “just beet it” flavor. The smell of the elderberries is a wonderful scent in the mornings.
Well I hope that you enjoyed this post and check out David’s Tea in person if you can.  I enjoy having my small pot of tea in the morning with my breakfast at my desk. It is a wonderful getaway. 
(photos via Mrs. Shockley)

My Monique Lhuillier Dinner Plates

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Earlier this year I shared on my facebook page about how I wanted some of Monique Lhuillier’s dinner plates. I went to our local Pottery Barn that weekend and they were sold out! Not a huge surprise because they are so beautiful. I had the urge to go again a few weekends ago. I did not know that Pottery Barn was having an awesome sale and that those garden plates were going to be half off!

Eureka!!!!!

These are called the meadow dinner plates and I managed to get them for $4.77 per plate! Can you believe?! So thrilled!

These are so chic. Just enough design and color. I love the beautiful simplicity of them.  
I think that these are so chinoiserie inspired. 

And of course they are microwavable and dishwasher safe. 
I have used these a few times already and just enjoy pulling them out of my cabinet and staring at them. I believe that you can have small beautiful things in your life. Even if they are just a few pretty dishes. 
Au revoir!
(photos via Mrs. Shockley)

Simplicity ~ Tea for One

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When we left Talbots a few weekends ago we passed a lovely store in the mall called David’s Tea. So we decided to go in and take a look around.

It was a lovely store and the staff was very friendly. I looked at all of their teas (I will share what I received for my birthday in another post) and accessories. I sampled one of the herbal teas and enjoyed it.

But there was one thing that caught my eye and it was their tea for one set.

This is called the White Simplicity Tea for One set. When I saw this I just knew that I had to have it. It has the strainer on the inside so that you can have a tea bag or your loose herbal tea. It is just wonderful! I have been using it at work all week and just love that I can have more than one cup of my herbal tea. 
The pot is just big enough for one person. I place my tea bag inside the metal strainer and just pour my hot water in. With the lid on top my water stays hot and I can let my herbal tea just sit and simmer inside the pot. This was me this past weekend. I had breakfast in my bedroom. 
My breakfast this weekend. My cup is the Royal Albert English Roses print (see here), my plates are blue and white (see here) and my breakfast tray is from Walmart (see here)
It has been such a joy to have this weekend. I am very grateful to my husband who purchased this for me for my birthday. It is a lovely gift. Now, I do not use the small cup that came with it. It does not have a handle and I love having my china cup with saucer to enjoy instead. I may use the cup to put my fresh fruit in.  Now, next week I plan on sharing all the herbal teas that I received as well. 
I hope you enjoyed this post! Au revoir! 
(photos via Mrs. Shockley)

The Crest Brooch

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I stopped by Talbots a few weekends ago to see my good friend Geneva. She is one of the managers there and I have not been able to see her for sometime now.

While I was waiting for her I decided to walk around the store to see what new goodies they had. Well, that was a bad idea because I then noticed this beautiful crest brooch!

This is called the Regal Crest Brooch. Isn’t it beautiful? If you are a Ralph Lauren fan then this is right up your alley. I love the Ralph Lauren crest that is displayed on the blazers and sweaters. 
It is going to be a wonderful addition to my collection of brooches and I think it is a novelty piece that one should have in their wardrobe. This was one of my birthday gifts from my husband. I would say that he did very well. I do hope that you can purchase it. It is on sale!
Enjoy!

(photos via Mrs. Shockley)

Order is Elegant

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A few weeks ago my office had it’s WLI meeting (Women’s Leadership Initiative) and in these meetings we always have a speaker and discuss ways to volunteer around our city. Our co-members of the group always want to start it with an icebreaker. This month’s icebreaker was to come up with a hashtag that described your morning.

Most people talked about coffee and their kids. I sat and thought about my mornings and the first words that came to mind were order and elegant. I always try to have order in my morning routines (see my blog post here about that) so the word order had to be included. The word elegant is always on my mind because of the way I desire to live. It doesn’t have to be fancy but elegant.

So in today’s post I wanted to share a little more about my morning routine.

My closet
What helps me to keep my mornings orderly is picking out my outfit the night before and all of the accessories that I am going to wear. 

I pick out my shoes (which sometimes can take an eternity).

I lay everything out so that I can see it. I switch my bags the night before if I need to. 
I will then look at scarves if I decided to wear one. 

I will pick out a bracelet….
Or a brooch for my outfit….
Of course I will have a pair of earrings that I will grab the next day.
And a bottle of perfume will be selected to wear the next day. 

Having these items picked out and ready to go the next morning makes my mornings go very smoothly. With all of this already selected it gives me time to have my morning workout and a bubble bath every morning. Yes! I take bubble baths every morning! I have been doing it since I was 21. My routine has not changed. 
Well I hope that you enjoyed this post and are inspired to add a little order to your morning. 
Enjoy your week! 

(photos via Mrs. Shockley)